May 30/11 23:09 pm - Killington Stage Race: Stage 3 and Final GC

Posted by Editoress on 05/30/11

Tivers Holds on to win Killington Stage Race, Fortin Wins by Default

Brett Tivers (Garneau-Club Chaussures-Norton Rose) benefited from a deep squad working together to bring him to a 2nd place finish on today’s Champion Systems Road Race and an overall victory in the 2011 Killington Stage Race.

The Garneau squad held the field together until the base of the final climb of the day, where 6 riders got clear by the KOM marker, Tivers, Hugo Houle, Remi Pelletier-Roy (Garneau), Amaud Papillon (Garneau), Sean Smith (JAM Fund/NCC), and Peter Hurst (BikeReg/Cannondale). The 6 held together until the final kilometre, where Hurst put on a burst that could not be matched and he coasted in for the win. Tivers, quite fresh given he was with teammates virtually the whole race, let Hurst go as he was no GC threat and grabbed 2nd to secure the win. Houle rounded out the podium with a strong performance from Smith, last year’s cat 3 winner, taking 4th and Pelletier-Roy coming in 5th.

Last year’s women’s winner Sue Schlatter (Stevens Racing p/b the Cyclery) was in pink at the start of today’s queen stage, but the Juvederm-Specialized squad was ready to take her off the throne with 2 of their riders, Veronique Labonte and Denise Ramsden, sitting within 15 seconds of Schlatter’s lead. Similarily to the men, Juvederm’s task was to keep things in check and then send either Labonte and Ramsden off to get the win.

So when Veronique Fortin (PK Express/HNZ Strategic.com) took off on an attack, Labonte responded, and was joined by Ramsden to make a group of 3 in front. Ramsden wound up dropping Labonte and then Fortin to cross the line first: However, it was all for not as race officials determined that the tactics of the team were dangerous in trying to control the field and the entire squad, sans Labonte who was in the winning move, were disqualified from the event. That left Fortin with a gift win and with the rest of the field over 4 minutes behind, it was enough to give her the GC win. The field finish wound up being led by Kristen Gohr (Stage 5/Cycling Fusion), who gapped the group on the final kilometre to take 2nd in the stage, with a tired Labonte getting the 3rd position on the stage and winding up 2nd on GC. Schlatter finished 5th on the day to hold on to 3rd spot overall.

Other winners in the stage race were Eric Follen in the category 3 men’s race, Jessie Donavan in the category 3/4 women’s race, Timothy Ahearn in the category 4 men’s race, Eric Levinsohn in the category 4/5 men’s race, Fred Thomas in the Masters 40+ race, and Haluk Sarci in the Masters 50+ race.

The 2011 Killington Stage Race is brought to you in part by the Town of Killington Economic Development and Tourism Board, Long Trail Brewery, The Mountain Times, Champion Systems, Raw Revolution natural and organic food bars, and by Vermont Pure Spring water.